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As someone who has worked in scholarship and advocacy around indigenous people, I'm both mourning this loss of an elder of the Juma people in Brazil, and also taking this moment to ask everyone to be cautious about narratives of "the last X." nytimes.com/2021/03/10/obituaries/aruka-juma-coronavirus-dead.htmlPermalink On twitter.com
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There has long been a colonial hunger for narratives of indigenous extinction.Permalink On twitter.com
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Often, these narratives invisibilize inter-cultural descendants of a community and proclaim that so-called "mixed blood" children are incapable of carrying forward a cultural tradition. This is, at least in part, true in this case.Permalink On twitter.com
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Aruká Juma is survived by three daughters who had a Juma mother. Their are rendered invisible by the ambiguous gendering of "last man" in his title. All three of them have married into the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau, people as did Aruká Juma after his wife's death.Permalink On twitter.com
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One of his grandsons is old enough to be quoted about his cause of death. As noted in the article, Aruká Juma had fourteen grandchildren, many of whom are breaking patrilineal norms to acknowledge their maternal grandfather's people.Permalink On twitter.com
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We should acknowledge enslavement, disease, and massacres from the 1700s to 1964—in short colonialism—as the proximate causes of the Juma people's massive population decline.Permalink On twitter.com
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Let's leave it to his daughters and grandchildren to define the future of Juma identity and culture. They will have many years to do so.On twitter.com